“Be like slaves waiting for their master to come home from a wedding banquet,” he said, “ready to open the door and greet him. When he comes home and finds them alert, he’ll have them sit down to eat… and he will serve them. You must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

Keep your lamps trimmed and burning. Be ready, for no one knows the house. If you died tonight, do you know where you would spend eternity?

I grew up in the United Church of Christ and, let’s face it, this isn’t the kind of question we ask. We don’t have tests of faith, we have testimonies of faith. We don’t demand adherence to ancient creeds, we respect them. We don’t have a list of beliefs, we concentrate on caring for the poor and the marginalized and the oppressed and the ignored.

The Christianity I grew up in was focused like a laser on caring for the least of these.

It wasn’t about where we would spend eternity. It was about what we were doing here and now.

So you can imagine my surprise when I got older and went to college and discovered that there were Christians with… a different perspective.
In college, I met Christians who firmly believed that you can divide the world into two groups.

On one side were the people who had accepted Jesus Christ into their hearts as their personal lord and savior… who believed the the Bible is the literal and inerrant word of God… who had very strict views on sexuality… and… and… and.

On the other side was everyone else, doomed to spend an eternity in hell.

And when those Christians met me, they made a judgment. They decided that I was a nominal Christian, a cultural Christian, a ‘fake’ Christian… destined to spend an eternity in hell.

They believed that my lamp was not trimmed and burning. They believed that when the master came home from the wedding banquet, he would find me unready.

And, to be fair, I made a pretty similar judgment about them.

Except, I don’t believe in hell. So my judgment was less consequential.

But I saw people who has tests of faith instead of testimonies of faith, who demanded adherence to ancient creeds but didn’t study them, who had a list of beliefs and ignored the poor and the marginalized and the oppressed and the ignored. And I thought they were nominal Christians, cultural Christians, ‘fake’ Christians.

I believed that their lamps were not trimmed and burning. I believed that when the master came home from the wedding banquet, he would find them unready.

We were two sides of the same coin. If Jesus had told this parable, I can only hope that we would have had the presence of mind to ask the question that Peter asked, the question that begins our reading today: “Is this parable for us, or for everyone?”

Today, we’re continuing our series on unity and diversity. And any time we talk about unity and diversity, this question comes up. Is this for us, or for everyone? Are we the people who need to hear this, or are there others? Is this about me, or is it about them?

In a world made up of many beliefs — religious, spiritual, political, cultural — this is a question that gets asked about diversity a lot: is this about something I need to do, or something they need to do?

And Jesus, as he usually does, has a parable of sorts:

“Who is this manager who the master will put in charge of the other servants to take care of them? It will be good for that manager if, when the master returns, the master finds him doing his work. That manager will be put in charge of all of the master’s possessions.

“But suppose the manager says to himself, ‘My master is taking a long time in coming,’ and he starts abusing the other servants and eating and drinking and getting drunk? The master will show up when the manager least expects it. And the master will cut that manager to pieces.

“The servant who knows the master’s will and does not do it will be beaten with many blows. But the servant who doesn’t know, and does things that deserve a beating, will be beaten lightly.”

It is, admittedly, no ‘blessed are the meek.’

But sit for a moment with the fact that Jesus is talking about a master beating his slaves and then set that aside. Because what Jesus is saying doesn’t depend on the beatings. Jesus is saying something simple: if you know what the right thing is, and you do the wrong thing, the consequences will be severe; if you don’t know what the right this is, and you do the wrong thing, the consequences will be light.

We will be judged according to our knowledge. This is about us. It’s always about us.

You may know that my wife and I watch The People’s Court. On that show, there are a lot of cases about dogs. There are cases where one dog bites another dog, or where a dog bites a person, or where a person injures a dog. Dogs are a major cause of litigation in the television court system.

And one of the points that Judge Marilyn Milian always makes is that we don’t punish dogs for being dogs. When a dog feels threatened and snaps and bites, that’s not the dog’s fault. But the person — the person who shouldn’t have had the dog leashed or muzzled or safely indoors — the person knew better. So the person can be held responsible.

We will be judged according to our knowledge. Or, as Jesus puts it, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

And that’s dangerous.

You see, it isn’t enough for me to say that my lamp is trimmed and burning. I need to actually keep my lamp trimmed and burning. I need to take a razor and slide the carbon off the wick. I need to snip off the straggly bits of cotton. I need to clean the soot out of the vents and the glass and the gallery. I need to light it. I need to protect it.

I need to care for what has been entrusted to me.

Now, sometimes I need to care for what has been entrusted to you. Some things have been entrusted to all of us. We are all in each other’s care and no one among us has been relieved for the responsibility of caring for the hungry and the thirsty, the stranger and the naked, the sick and the imprisoned.
We are all called to love God. We are all called to love our neighbor. And, sometimes, we need to hold each other accountable.

But…

As long as your lamp is trimmed and burning, I don’t need to critique how you trim the wick. I don’t need to watch you snip off the straggly bits of cotton. I don’t need to tell you how to clean the vents and the glass and gallery.
And I don’t need to tell you what color the glass should be, or what material the gallery should be made from, or how your lamp should be shaped.
As long as your lamp is trimmed and burning — as long as you are loving God, as long as you are loving your neighbor — that’s enough.

It’s a lot. It’s too much. And it’s enough.

There is grace enough for galleries of gold and silver and clay. There is grace enough for glass that is clear or blue or red or rainbow. There is grace enough for cylinders and bulbs and vases and times when the glassblower sneezed.

The light of Christ burns just as bright in every lamp.

There is grace enough for people who have accepted Jesus Christ into their hearts as their personal lord and savior, and for people who don’t understand what that means.

There is grace enough for people who believe that the Bible is the literal and inerrant word of God, and for people who see the Bible as a collection of testimonies written over centuries and standing in need of interpretation and reinterpretation.

There is grace enough for people who want and need rules, and for people who long to be freed from rules.

The light of Christ burns just as bright in every lamp.

Even in this divided time, there is grace enough for republicans and democrats and libertarians and socialists.

Even in this divided time, there is grace enough for blue lives matter and black lives matter.

Even in this divided time, there is grace enough for you… and there is grace enough for me.

The light of Christ burns just as bright in every lamp. The light of Christ burns just as bright in every life. The light of Christ burns just as bright in every act of love… and compassion… and mercy.

And the light of Christ — the fire of the holy spirit — will light the whole world. Hallelujah. Amen.

About

I’m a pastor and a nonprofit development and communications professional. My passion, my mission, and my calling is bringing people together to do good, with a particular focus on serving people who are experiencing poverty and other forms of marginalization.

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